Sunday, May 9, 2010

Piano recital -- done!

Even though this isn't the first time I've played on a piano recital, it's one of very few if you consider all the years I've been playing. My nerves were mostly focused on wondering how nervous I would be. I decided to not try to play from memory, and I think that was a good decision because I was able to enjoy the experience of performing and take many more chances than if I were worrying about whether I was going to have a memory lapse.

What sealed it for me was that I wasn't able to practice much yesterday. There must have been some bad pollen blowing through town; something, in any case, was making my eyes sting and my head heavy, so I practiced just a little bit and went to bed early. I woke up this morning feeling fine.

I did some careful practicing this morning: I spent more than an hour working through the piece backward, measure by measure, while looking at the score. This helped me reconnect with playing and reading at the same time, and it also reinforced my knowledge of how the music flows from one measure to the next. Doing this made me feel much more secure about using the music after spending the past few months playing the piece from memory every day. The other seven people playing on the recital all used music, too, so I didn't feel that bad about it.

The piano was a decent 9-foot Steinway grand. It had a very light action (i.e., it was very easy to press the keys down) compared with my Estonia, so that was one reason for some of my clunkers -- where on my piano, I can brush against a key and it will not sound, on this one, everything sounded. It also seemed much louder and brighter than my piano, so I think I sounded harsh when things got loud. If I'd had 15 minutes to practice on the piano and get used to its quirks, I might have played better, but that's how it goes at these things.

Overall, I had fun playing in front of an audience, and I got a lot of compliments afterward. My husband recorded it on his cell phone, but it's not a great recording so I won't post it.

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Well-Tempered Clavier Project

I am on a quest to learn all 48 sets of preludes and fugues in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, "learning" including memorizing. I thought it might be interesting to collect all of my Bach efforts in one place; see the list below. Clicking on the link will open the recording so you can listen to it.

The recordings are in reverse chronological order (oldest last). The earliest was recorded in 2006.

I am NOT implying that these are definitive interpretations! Rather, this is meant to document my development as an amateur pianist.

I have actually learned these others as well but never tried recording them; maybe someday I will go back and resurrect them:

WTC II/20 in A minor
WTC I/21 in B flat major
WTC I/1 in C major
WTC I/2 in C minor